She was educated and schooled in the social skills of her father's class, and he helped her to enjoy a life of relative privilege away from the harsh realities of slavery before emancipation following the American Civil War.

[1]: 41  Beginning in 1801, Georgia had prohibited slaveholders from independently freeing their slaves, requiring an act of legislature (seldom given), for each request.

Therefore, Elizabeth and David Dickson had no means to manumit Amanda and keep her with them in Georgia until the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, was ratified on December 6, 1865.

[1]: 41 At the age of 27, Amanda chose to leave her father's plantation in Hancock County, Georgia to attend the normal school of Atlanta University, where she studied teaching from 1876 to 1878.

[1]: 360–61 In 1866, at the age of sixteen, Amanda America moved to a small plantation in Floyd County, Georgia near the city of Rome.

He was the child of an enslaved black woman, Kit, and was ultimately bought by wealthy white John Toomer, who had settled in Houston County, Georgia in the 1850s.

As a young man, Nathan had served as the personal assistant to then-owner Colonel Henry Toomer, and in that capacity learned the ways of white upper-class gentlemen.

[1]: 80  In November 1885, the trial in the Superior Court of Hancock County began, with the eventual ruling siding with Amanda America Dickson and her two sons.

Associate justices Samuel Hall and Mark Blanford remained to deliver the ruling regarding whether the white relatives would receive a new trial.

Ultimately, eight months later, on June 13, 1887, Samuel Hall and Mark Blanford of the Georgia Supreme Court also ruled in favor of Amanda America and her two sons, formally settling the dispute of David Dickson's will.

[1]: 107  Also, in part to distance herself from her disgruntled white relatives whom David Dickson had left out of his will, she moved to Augusta, Georgia, which was a familiar city to her.

[1]: 112–114 Amanda America Dickson spent the last eleven months of her life as the wife of Nathan Toomer, from Perry, Georgia, whom she married on July 14, 1892.

Her younger son, 23-year-old Charles Dickson, who was married to Kate Holsey, became infatuated with stepsister Mamie Toomer, who was only fourteen years old.

On March 10, 1893, Nathan and Amanda brought Mamie to the St. Francis School and Convent in Baltimore, Maryland, an order of black nuns, in an attempt to protect her from Charles Dickson's attentions.

Walton, Frank, and their lawyer, E. J. Waring, were indicted by the grand jury of Baltimore, Maryland for conspiracy to kidnap Mamie Toomer.

[1]: 120–121  The delayed travel to Augusta and the conditions in the Pullman car, most notably the rising temperature, became intolerable for Amanda America.

[1]: 120–121  Dr. F. D. Kendall, who examined her on the morning of June 9, 1893, noted that her heart and lungs appeared to be fine, but that she was obviously very nervous and anxious to return home.

Symptoms of neurasthenia, as described by nineteenth-century physicians, include "sick headache, noises in the ear, atonic voice, deficient mental control, bad dreams, insomnia, nervous dyspepsia (disturbed digestion), heaviness of the loin and limb, flushing and fidgetiness, palpitations, vague pains and flying neuralgia (pain along a nerve), spinal irritation, uterine irritability, impotence, hopelessness, claustrophobia, and dread of contamination.

[1]: 123 Amanda America Dickson Toomer's funeral took place at the Trinity Colored Methodist Episcopal Church in Augusta, Georgia.

Her mother, Julia Frances Lewis Dickson, and her second husband, Nathan Toomer, both petitioned in court to be designated the temporary administrator of her estate.